TV Espresso: News Items for Tuesday, December 6, 2011

by Trevor Kimball, December 6, 2011

Today, we have the return of Undercover Boss, “extensions” for Allen Gregory and Bones, casting changes for the next Star Trek movie, an update on Nickelodeon’s ratings woes, and a few dates in TV history.

Bones
FOX has rescheduled the fall finale of Bones to winter, from December 15th to January 12th. The network had previously scheduled a Bones repeat as a lead-in for the debut of the new spin-off, The Finder. Now, it’ll be preceded by this original installment, the mid-season finale, on the 12th.

Star Trek
Peter Weller, best known for his iconic role in Robocop, has joined the cast of the movie sequel in a principal but unspecified role. Meanwhile, Paramount and JJ Abrams were busy shooting down rumors that Benicio Del Toro would be playing Kahn, the villainous role that Ricardo Montalban played in the original Star Trek TV show and reprised for the 1982 feature film. Now, comes word that Del Toro is out because they couldn’t come to terms over money. Production’s scheduled to begin next month and the 3D movie is slated for a May 17, 2013 release.

Allen Gregory
FOX is pre-empting the seventh (and very likely final) episode of their low-rated animated series. Allen Gregory was initially scheduled to air this Sunday, December 11th, amongst a holiday themed group of shows. FOX has replaced it with a Christmas installment of The Cleveland Show and will air the Allen Gregory finale on December 18th instead.

Nickelodeon
Last week, we brought you the news that the cable channel has been experiencing sudden large drops in viewership. They’ve been scrambling trying to figure out the reason and believe that there’s a problem with the Nielsen reporting. Nielsen still stands by its Nickelodeon ratings reports but admits that they made a mistake when they told the Wall Street Journal that viewership of kids 2-11 is up by 1.7% when compared to last fall. In fact, that viewership is down by 2.9%. They had forgotten to apply a standard adjustment for year-to-year comparisons because of a reporting change made in February 2011. Though they say that there’s nothing wrong with the Nickelodeon data, this gaffe will likely give Nickelodeon ammunition to claim that they’re being under-reported.

Undercover Boss
CBS has scheduled the season three debut of their reality series for Sunday, January 15th, at 8pm. This season, Undercover Boss will be broadcast in HD for the first time. The series began as a huge hit in early 2010 and averaged a 4.6 in the 18-49 demographic and 14.62 million viewers. Season two dropped to a 3.0 in the demo and 11.27 million.

ON THIS DAY2005:Sleeper Cell debuted on Showtime.

1994:Come Die With Me: A Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer Mystery aired on CBS. Rob Estes played the private eye in this movie. Stacy Keach played the part in two TV series (1987 and 1998) as well as various TV movies.

1989: The last episode of the original Doctor Who series aired.

1980:Freebie and the Bean debuted on CBS.

1964: The classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special premiered on NBC.

What do you think? Do you think FOX should reschedule Bones’ fall finale? Do you think viewers are tiring of Undercover Boss?

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I completely LOVE Undercover Boss, however at some point people are going to start treating it like Candid Camera, everyone is going to be asking “Am I on Undercover Boss or something?” when a really inept worker starts working, epecially the ones with bad wigs and beards. LOL I have never missed an episode, and with any luck, I never will. I just love the idea that just maybe those higher up corporate types actually give a darn about the little guy, and the plight of the every-man/woman. I Love Bones, and LOVE the books the shows are based on… Read more »

I really wish they’d stuck with their original plan to air the backdoor pilot for Finder before Finder, but I understand that they think they’re going to get higher viewership for the premiere if they air a new episode of Bones in front of it. I’m not interested in “The Finder” at all, though; I hear Saffron Burrows is out and she was the only reason I was going to even try to suffer through it. I love Bones, but really don’t like The Finder.